Emerging resistance to existing antibiotics is rapidly developing as a crisis of global proportions, especially for Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, and Streptococcus pneumonia infections. Pathogenic bacteria can transmit genes coding for antibiotic resistance both vertically (to their progeny) and horizontally (to neighboring bacteria of different lineages), and as a result antibiotic resistance can evolve quickly, particularly in nosocomial (hospital) settings. See, e.g., Wright, Chem. Commun. (2011) 47:4055-4061. This year, >99,000 people will die in the U.S. from healthcare-associated infections, more than all casualties from car accidents, HIV, and breast cancer combined, creating an estimated burden of up to $45 billion in U.S. healthcare costs. See, e.g., Klevens et al., Public Health Rep. (2007) 122:160-166. The current crisis is exacerbated by the fact that most major pharmaceutical companies have essentially abandoned research in the development of new antibiotics. See, e.g., Projan, Curr. Opin. Microbiol. (2003) 6: 427-430. The current rate of introduction of new antibiotics does not adequately address growing resistance, and with the ease of international travel and increasing population densities, the need for innovation in the field has never been higher.
The sugars desosamine and mycaminose are critical components of many macrolide antibiotics. For the development of practical and scalable synthetic routes to macrolide antibiotics and novel analogs, there is a need for simple and efficient methods of preparing desosamine, mycaminose, and analogs thereof.